How can the burner scratch a disc?

[coody]

I played a new backup DVD disc in a DVD player. I heard a little like scratching noise and the movie froze. Then I took out the disc and saw the scratches on the disc. I thought the scratch is always due to the careless. How can the DVD player or the burner scratch the disc during the play or writing? Is it normal?

[Electrox3d]

If your OPU is jarred (the drive was bumped or dropped) it can missalign and scratch the disc.

[redwudz]

Are the scratches in the same area, in a circular pattern? The pickup assembly is fairly close to the disc and a chunk of debris on it may have contacted the disc. Normally the laser lens itself is the only thing that sticks above the pickup assembly. And if it caused the scratch, it may have also damaged the lens. But it would have made more of a 'smudge', not a sharp scratch.



You might try to take a look in there, and try a junk disc to see if the problem is still there. Usually the spinning disc blows most lose debris off the assembly.

[bevills1]

Do you have both Roxiio and Nero installed on the system? Once I had a CD badly scratched while both Roxio and Nero were installed. These programs are incompatible which I didn't know at that time, and you should uninstall one of them if both are installed.

[coody]

Are the scratches in the same area, in a circular pattern? The pickup assembly is fairly close to the disc and a chunk of debris on it may have contacted the disc. Normally the laser lens itself is the only thing that sticks above the pickup assembly. And if it caused the scratch, it may have also damaged the lens. But it would have made more of a 'smudge', not a sharp scratch.



You might try to take a look in there, and try a junk disc to see if the problem is still there. Usually the spinning disc blows most lose debris off the assembly.

Q: Are the scratches in the same area, in a circular pattern?

A: No. it was just in one small area and not for all the discs. Is a laser lens cleaner sold in a store helpful for cleaning the drive or there are other more efficient methods to do so?

[redwudz]

I think the lens cleaner would just clean the lens and not do much else. If you had dirt on the lens, you would have problems burning or reading the discs. I don't like to suggest using 'canned air' as that can blow dust further into the drive where it could cause other problems. But if all else fails.....

The way you describe the problem, it sounds like just a odd circumstance. The scratch may have been from loading or was just unnoticed before play? I would closely check the tray and watch how the discs load as it may have happened at that point. As mentioned, try a few junk discs and see if you can duplicate the problem. If not, maybe it's OK now.

The 'scratching' noise and the drive stopping are odd. Those discs spin fairly fast and they only time I have heard that sort of sound is when the disc slips on the drive spindle. Or once when I had two discs in there by accident. But anyway, the drive bears watching to see if it may have a major problem.

If anything on the pickup assembly scratched the disc, the scratches would be circular and in mostly one area.

I think Roxio and Nero have gotten over their compatibility problems. I seem to remember XP uses a Roxio based burner program for the OS and it gets along fine with Nero. That said, I wouldn't use either. ImgBurn is a better choice most times.

[TBoneit]

Been there and done that with two discs in the drive. That's what happens when you get in a hurry. The noise tells you real quick.

I have seen Drives scratch discs. Always in a circular pattern. And I've seen bad drives where the drawer opens while the disc is still spinning and it ends up spinning on teh surface of the drawer.

[aedipuss]

warped or unbalanced discs could scratch in one place. were they el cheapo blanks? or possibly do they have an adhesive label on top?

[levick]

Servicing cd mechs for years has shown me some interesting reasons for damaging discs...
The scratch that follows the disc is common. the second is the disc being dropped into the tray while still in motion. Least is the issue described here.

If there is nothing stuck to the mech that is causing it then its a case of watch and see..

The first could be the disc being to thin and not being held firmly, not common now with magnetic clampers.
They get speed wobbles and produce the scratches at the low point where the disc hits a part of the mech or the top of the objective lens...

The other being the full circle is normally caused by the focus servo loosing the plot. The lens needs to rise from rest to obtain focus lock then depending on programming the disc is spun up and tracking servo circuits are engaged..

Now if because of poor reflectivity and or a already flawed disc focus is lost so the focus servos will try to reacquire.

If this is not successful because the disc is spinning to fast the lens is pushed up into the disc...shouldn't happen but it does. One laser type used to decay slowly and would get to the point where the auto level circuits couldn't maintain the correct operation and lose focus because the laser was at the point of failure the result was the same.

If its not the discs then maybe time for a new reader....